Chapter 19 #2
Instead, he waited until David was distracted, then slipped out into the street. The air was cold, sharp enough to clear his head, and he walked the length of St. James’s twice before returning, finding a small green patch—a would-be park, if someone had tended to it.
He sat there until the sky began to pale, until the sounds of the city crept in through the glass.
He did not sleep. He did not want to.
His return to the house was inevitable. Felix arrived at dusk, mud-caked and shivering, his only company the fog that clung to the hedges and crept up the drive like an unwelcome memory.
The staff took one look at him and melted away. The butler, unflappable as ever, met him at the door, but Felix brushed past without a word, shucking his boots and coat in the vestibule. He ascended the staircase two steps at a time, not caring what he left in his wake.
In the master suite, he stripped and washed himself with water so cold it burned. He did not bother with supper. When the cold had made his hands steady again, he summoned the butler.
“Tell Cook I’ll take my meals in the study.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And—” Felix stopped. The urge to rescind every order, to march down the corridor and beg for forgiveness, threatened to unman him entirely. He gritted his teeth. “No visitors. No correspondence unless I say so. That includes Lord Aldworth.”
A flicker of something passed over Winters’ face—relief? pity? Felix could not tell. “Of course, Your Grace.”
Left alone, he poured a glass of whiskey and stared out the window into the dark. The parkland was shrouded in mist, the lawn littered with the bones of winter’s storms. Somewhere out there, he knew, were Rose and Lizzie, asleep or reading in the nursery.
He tried to picture them: Rose’s hair unbound; Lizzie’s tiny fingers tangled in it. The thought was a blow to his stomach. He drank.
The next day, Felix set about the business of isolation. He canceled all standing appointments—fencing with David, even the annual inspection of the tenant farms. He drafted terse notes to each party and left them unsigned. He was not interested in explanations.
He had his meals alone, at odd hours, and never in the main dining room.
If he passed Rose in the hallway, he gave her the briefest of nods and kept moving.
Once, he caught the sound of her laughter from the nursery and nearly turned back, but stopped himself.
He waited until the house was silent before venturing out to the stables or along the boundary wall.
Carden House became a fortress. The staff learned to step softly, to announce themselves with a cough or a tap before entering any room Felix might be in.
The only exception was the old housekeeper, Mrs. Finch, who bustled about with the imperviousness of a veteran, and who, Felix suspected, pitied him even as she served him.
He did not sleep. When exhaustion forced him to his bed, he lay awake and traced the cracks in the ceiling, counting the hours until dawn.
On the third day, Felix caught sight of Rose in the garden.
She was walking the gravel path that circled the south lawn, Lizzie held tight against her hip, her face bright with the effort of distraction.
They stopped now, and then so the child could examine a frost-burned rose or the glimmering web of a spider between two branches.
Rose spoke to Lizzie in a low, soothing cadence, her words indistinct but gentle.
Felix watched from the upper window, hidden by the drape. The sight of them—so close, so impossibly far—tore at him. He longed to run down to scoop Lizzie into his arms, to brush the hair from Rose’s face, and tell her he was sorry. That he would try. That he would never let them slip away.
Instead, he gripped the sill until his knuckles whitened and forced himself to look away.
He was not his father, but the capacity for destruction was in him all the same.
The only safety was distance.
He closed the curtain, shut out the view, and returned to his study, the whiskey, and the comfort of his own unassailable misery.
He kept the windows closed after that.
The first time they dined together after the disaster, Felix dressed as if for a funeral. Black suit, black tie, crisp linen as white as chalk. He was early to the table, hands folded and unmoving, and he waited in silence as the clock ticked through the minutes.
The dining room seemed so much darker, so much grimmer that night with its oil portraits of scowling ancestors, ceiling so high it made voices vanish, and a table long enough to guarantee distance. The footmen moved with precision; their faces trained to blankness.
Rose arrived exactly on time, her gown the color of old parchment, her hair pulled back so tightly it sharpened every angle of her face. She did not hesitate at the threshold. She walked to her place at the far end of the table and seated herself, her back perfectly straight.
Felix stood, bowed, and sat again. He did not know why he bothered. Rose was already smoothing her napkin across her lap; her eyes fixed on the silver.
The soup course arrived. Felix watched the steam curl upward, lost in the way it blurred and then revealed the room beyond. When he finally met Rose’s gaze, it was through a haze of heat.
She was the first to speak.
“Did you receive the bill from the draper’s?” she asked, her voice soft and remote.
“I did,” Felix replied. “Your choices are excellent. I approved the sum.”
A nod. “Thank you.”
The soup was carrot, and far too sweet. Felix ate it anyway, spoonful after spoonful, as if by the mechanical process he could grind away the silence between them. The second course—sole, pale, and shivering under its crust—appeared. The staff poured the wine, vanished.
Rose took a small bite, then set down her fork. “Lizzie is teething again. The nurse thinks it may be her molars.”
Felix said, “She was fussy this morning. I heard her from the corridor.”
Rose’s mouth quirked at that, but not enough to be called a smile. “She is brave.”
He wanted to say, you were a child, how could you be brave? But the words stuck. He said, “She takes after you.”
Rose went still. “That isn’t possible, Felix. I’m not her blood. She has nothing of me in her.”
“Blood is only the beginning, Rose. The rest is who holds her when the room is dark.” He stepped closer. “You did not give her your features, perhaps, but you are giving her your spirit. A child mirrors the one who guards her.”
He paused, his gaze softening. “A child imprints on whom it loves most. She is a Carden, certainly, but she is becoming yours.”
Another silence. Rose tucked a stray hair behind her ear. Felix watched her hands, their efficiency, the way she never allowed herself to fidget.
They made it halfway through the roast before Rose spoke again. “Has David written?” she asked.
Felix shook his head. “I told him not to.”
“Why?” The question was gentle, but the undertone was sharp. She was testing for weakness, and he felt it.
He sipped his wine. “There’s nothing to say.”
Rose considered. “He wrote me a note, weeks ago. To ask after Lizzie. He is very fond of her.”
“He always has been.” Felix stared at his plate, picking at the edge of the meat with his knife. “He’s fond of you, too.”
Rose was silent for a long time. At last, she said, “I’m sorry if you feel—”
“Don’t,” Felix said. The interruption was abrupt, but he could not help it. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”
Rose looked at him then, really looked, and he had the sense she saw him as he was: thin-skinned, brittle, all his pride scorched away.
She said, “I don’t want to be your enemy.”
He could not answer.
A log settled in the fireplace, sending a shower of sparks up the flue. The noise filled the space, as if the house itself wanted to rescue them.
Felix set down his knife and fork. “I am not trying to make an enemy of you,” he said. “I am only trying not to… to make it worse.”
Rose’s lips parted, but she did not speak. Instead, she pushed her plate away and folded her hands.
He tried again. “If there’s anything you need—”
She cut him off, quietly, “What I need, Felix, is for you to stop disappearing.”
That was the heart of it. He could see it now, in her eyes.
The pain of it, the shape of it. She was a woman who had already been abandoned by her parents, tossed away to a convent to be forgotten.
And here he was, abandoning her to the walls of Carden House and to their marriage, leaving her all alone.
He wanted to tell her he was doing it for her. That the last thing he wanted was to break her, or Lizzie, or the fragile peace they’d bought at such cost.
Instead, he said, “I’m not very good company these days.”
Rose’s mouth twisted. “Neither am I.”
The staff appeared with the next course, but Rose shook her head. “Take it away, please.” She stood, smoothing her gown. “I have a headache,” she said, though it was a transparent lie. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Felix rose, a second too late. “Of course.”
He watched her go, her spine a line of pure will. She did not look back.
The footmen cleared the table, resetting every dish, every glass, as if for a guest who would never arrive. Felix stood at the window and watched the night close in, the world beyond reduced to shadows and rain.
He poured himself a brandy and drank it in one go. The taste was bitter, but he welcomed it.
He was alone again, and for the first time, he understood what it meant.
He spent the rest of the evening in the study, surrounded by the detritus of a life he no longer recognized. Letters from parliament, bills from the estate, a sheaf of invitations to events he would never attend.
He sat at the desk and wrote nothing, stared at nothing, until the fire died and the house grew cold around him.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard Lizzie’s crying, sharp, indignant wail, demanding attention.
He waited for it to fade. He did not go to her.
He was not sure he ever would again.